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Poniatowski was a great-great-great-grandson of Prince Kazimierz Poniatowski, older brother of Stanisław August Poniatowski, who reigned as king of Poland from 1764 to 1795. Kasimierz had a son, Stanisław Poniatowski 1754–1833, whose son, Giuseppe Luci (1816–1873), by his mistress Cassandra Luci, was recognized and ennobled in the Austrian Empire on 19 November 1850 as Joseph Michel, Prince Poniatowski,[1][2] a name and title recognised by Napoleon III when Poniatowski was naturalised in France and became a senator there, both in 1854. Two years later in Paris, Joseph's son, Prince Stanislas Poniatowski (1835–1908), married Louise Le Hon, generally reputed to be the daughter of Countess Le Hon (née Fanny Mosselman) by Charles, Duke de Morny, the illegitimate son of Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut by Hortense de Beauharnais, sometime Queen consort of Holland as well as the adopted and step-daughter of Napoleon I; thus Louise Le Hon (as a grand-daughter of Napoleon III's uterine half-brother) was a niece of the Emperor of France at the time of her marriage to Poniatowski, who was appointed the emperor's aide-de-camp.[2] Their son, André Poniatowski (1864-1954) wed Stockton flour mill heiress, Elizabeth Sperry, in 1894. The son of that union, Prince Casimir Poniatowski (1897-1980), became the father of Michel by his 1920 marriage to Countess Anne de Caraman-Chimay (1901-1977), member of a Belgian princely family.

Following the assassination of Prince Jean de Broglie, a Giscardian deputy, L'Express (January 1977) and then Le Canard enchaîné, in 1980, published documents alleging that Poniatowski had known in advance of the death threats on de Broglie, and had not acted accordingly. The satirical newspaper recalled that de Broglie had been treasurer of the Independent Republicans, and tied to the Matesa scandal, which allegedly funded the RI. Soon after this affair, and the failure of the right-wing at the March 1977 municipal elections, Poniatowski quit the Ministry of Interior and would not be called again as minister.

Poniatowski approved in September 1983 the merger of the electoral list RPR-UDF with the far-right National Front (FN) party, headed by Jean-Marie Le Pen, during the partial municipal election of Dreux. He stated: "The fascist danger in France does not come from the right, but from the left, of which it is its spiritual vocation and method. One must therefore vote against the fascists of the left."[4]

Poniatowski was then senator of the Val-d'Oise from 1989 to 1995, and continued to advocate in favour of electoral agreements with the National Front, taking as model the (difficult) relationship between the Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF). An atypical member of the UDF, which he had co-founded, he was first ignored by his colleagues for his support of the far-right – the National Front's ascension is usually dated from the 1983 Dreux elections. After his support for electoral agreements with the FN during the 1992 regional elections and the 1993 legislative elections, he was finally disavowed by his fellow party members at the end of 1991, although he was neither excluded nor deprived of his honorary presidential functions.